The Alameda Theater gets another shot at revival

1of14The Alameda Theater, which opened in 1949, has seen several efforts at restoration over the years. The latest $26 million initiative involves the city, the county and Texas Public Radio.Photo: Courtesy City of San Antonio

11of14In 2003, the black-light murals that cover the walls of the Alameda Theater were shown off during a press conference announcing a conservation project with the Smithsonian Center for Materials Research and Education.Photo: Express-News file photo

12of14Cantinflas, shown during a visit to San Antonio in 1957, was one of the Mexican superstars who appeared at the Alameda Theater during its heyday.Photo: Courtesy UTSA Special Collections

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urtesy UTSA Special CollectionsPhoto: Courtesy UTSA Special Collections /

The Alameda Theater closed decades ago, but it still has a hold on many San Antonians.

“Every time I turn around, somebody has a memory of the Alameda (to share),” said City Councilman Roberto Treviño, whose district includes the theater and who has been working on the latest effort to restore and reopen the nearly 70-year-old space. “I think memories are actually history, too. And I think that this is a real connection to our past, to our loved ones.”

Treviño hosted a movie night at the Alameda in January. He and his staff cleaned the auditorium and invited folks to come see three movies there, including one starring Mexican film legend Cantinflas. One of the people who turned out was a 102-year-old woman, he said, who told him she had attended the theater’s opening in 1949.

“Everybody had this connection,” he said. “It’s a personal one. It’s not a business connection, it’s not an economic connection, it’s a very personal one; and everyone has their own memories.”

Even now, after decades of neglect, it’s clear why the Alameda made such an impression on those who once went there. Maroon doors on each side of the airy lobby lead into the auditorium. Despite water damage to the walls and ceiling, the black-light murals created by artist Pedro Teran that are one of the theater’s signature elements remain visually striking. The ladies room, which many remember for its horseshoe-shaped vanity lined with stools, still hints at old-school glamour. And much of the distinctive tile work throughout is intact and gorgeous.

The building was developed as a Spanish-language movie and performing arts palace by Gaetano “Tano” Lucchese and designed by architect N. Straus Nayfach.

Nayfach spent time in Mexico City specifically to get ideas for the Alameda, said Ruth Nayfach Fagan-Wilen, his daughter. Her mother went with him, and she told Fagan-Wilen that as they traveled through the city by taxi, her father often asked the drivers to stop so he could step outside and sketch various things that caught his eye.

“It shows how important it was to him to get ideas and concepts and a feeling for the Mexican perspective on open areas and building for the public and so forth,” said Fagan-Wilen, 72, who recently retired from her position teaching in the social work program at the University of Texas at Austin.

Fagan-Wilen was a baby when her parents made that trip, but the theater was such a point of pride in her family that she grew up hearing stories about it.

Her dad didn’t live to see his handiwork completed. He died in 1948, at the age of 40, and her mother and uncle finished the building, which opened a year later. The family moved away shortly thereafter, but they returned when she was a teenager. Any time they drove downtown, she said, her mother made it a point to pass the theater.

“She would say, ‘This is the Alameda. This is what your dad built; this is what your uncle Harvey and I finished,’” she recalled.

The theater became a touchstone for the Hispanic community. Other theaters that featured Spanish-language entertainment were more utilitarian, said Bexar County Commissioner Paul Elizondo, who ushered at the Alameda as a kid.

“It was a beautiful theater and the nicest place,” Elizondo said. “It was an elegant theater, and something the Mexican-American community was very, very proud of. So they patronized it and made it a family place where they would go. Sundays, they would take their grandmother to Mass and then to the movies — it was that type of thing.”

Ernestine Leos, 65, remembers going there with her family as a child.

“It’s a big part of the Hispanic culture of San Antonio,” said Leos, a retired bilingual education teacher.

She sometimes comes to the building now to visit her daughter, who teaches at the Henry Ford Academy: Alameda School for Art + Design, which is in the Casa de Mexico building adjoining the theater.

“When I go into the building, it gives me goose bumps,” Leos said.

In addition to screening movies, the Alameda presented live entertainment, including performances and appearances by such superstars as Cantinflas, Pedro Infante and Vicente Fernández.

Leos is one of many San Antonio baby boomers with vivid memories of trips to the theater.

Mark Rodriguez, the 61-year-old owner of Sound City Productions, said his mother and aunt went to the Alameda “religiously.” The theater building was home to radio station KCOR-AM, and Rodriguez remembers listening to later broadcasts of programs he had seen live.

Teacher Cindy Martinez, 65, spent many of her childhood Saturdays there. Her grandmother would take her shopping at Solo Serve, she said, then they’d head over to the Alameda for a movie.

Martinez remembers the theater having floral maroon carpeting. And she remembers that the air conditioning didn’t quite cool the space, “so the air in the theater, I remember it being humid, and then mixed with the smell of popcorn.”

The Alameda lost some of its luster in the 1970s, when it was divided into a triplex, and it closed in the late ’80s. The city purchased the building in 1994. There have been a number of attempts over the years to restore and reopen it, but none have succeeded.

The latest plan is a $23 million public-private effort by the city, the county and Texas Public Radio, which will move its headquarters into the fairly new stage house at the back of the building. The Alameda Theater Conservancy, a new nonprofit, will oversee the endeavor.

In terms of programming, Elizondo said, “the Alameda will become the destination for Hispanic entertainment. That is the goal.”

If all goes according to plan, TPR will be settling into its new home in 2019 and the theater will reopen in January 2020.

“We have the leadership in place, with both the public and private sectors, and we have a great anchor tenant with TPR, so the theater really won’t be empty 24/7,” Houston said.

The community also has been brought into the process. People have been invited to share their memories of the space at public meetings and at “Remembering the Alameda” sessions at libraries. The stories will be archived, Houston said, and will help guide the restoration.

Fagan-Wilen has kept an eye on every plan to reopen the Alameda, and she is cautiously optimistic that this one will take. She’s also conscious of the fact that the clock may be winding down on the enthusiasm required to get it done.

“I can’t tell you how many people will say, ‘I grew up going there with my parents or my grandparents,’” she said. “A lot of those people are in their 70s and 80s now. We’ve gotta do it this time. The newer generation coming up didn’t go to the Alameda. We have to do it while all those memories are still there.”

dlmartin@express-news.net

Twitter: @DeborahMartinEN

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Deborah Martin is an arts writer who came to work for the San Antonio Express-News in 1999. She writes primarily about theater – she sees around 100 shows annually -- and helps oversee the paper’s coverage of the fine performing arts. Her first newspaper job was with the El Paso Herald-Post, where she worked as a general assignment reporter before becoming arts and entertainment editor. After the Herald-Post closed, she spent just over a year covering the arts for the Corpus Christi Caller-Times before coming to the Express-News. She has a degree in journalism from UT El Paso, and was a fellow in the NEA Arts Journalism Institute in Theater and Musical Theater at the University of Southern California in 2007.